Obama's Morehouse College Speech, Condensed

By now, it’s pretty common knowledge that whenever El Presidente and Lady Obama speak to Black audiences, they’re really speaking to white audiences, and that their remarks to Black audiences are guaranteed to be packed to the gills with disrespect, condescension, offensive stereotypes, and shopworn bromides about “personal responsibility”. A classic example of this backhandedness can be found in El Presidente’s recent — and already infamous — commencement speech at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Not since his notorious Father’s Day speech on the campaign trail in 2008 did El Presidente emit such a great, steaming load of bite-me, rolling out the trendy Black “street” slang like “brother” and “on point” in what was basically a slicked-up Bill Cosby rant, where the only thing missing was El Presidente telling the Morehouse Men to pull up their pants.

Could you imagine El Presidente speaking to an audience of white college grads this way? Could you imagine him at, say, the University Of Virginia, admonishing fresh graduates to get a haircut and stop piercing their noses and wearing those sloppy ripped jeans and playing those Green Day albums and smoking weed and partying ’til all hours? Not a chance.

What’s really sad about all this, though, is that for the most part, Black Americans totally eat this stuff up. It doesn’t seem to matter that The First Black President hasn’t done squat about the Black unemployment rate, the Black foreclosure rate, mass incarceration and racist police violence. Barack Obama tells Black America to eat shit, and Black America reaches for a fork.

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…and, here’s what some other folks are saying about El Presidente and Lady Obama jerking Black America’s chain in their recent college commencement speeches:

“How The Obama Administration Talks To Black America”, Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic, 05.20.13
“As Commencement Speakers At Black Schools, The Obamas Pile On The Homework”, Courtland Milloy, The Washington Post, 05.21.13
“The Obama ‘Dog Whistle’”, Margaret Kimberly, Black Agenda Report, 05.22.13

Yer Liberals, Episode 2: "Make Him Do It"

Remember back in school, when the class bully would dump your books, shove you into your locker and try to shake you down for your lunch money, and you'd say "hey, c'mon, quit it!", and the bully would get up in your face and sneer "make me"? Well, that's the mental image I get when I hear Pwogwessives and Liberals talking about what they need to do to get Obama to honor his promises and implement more progressive policies, and they say that they need to "hold his feet to the fire" and "make him do it".

Trouble is, they had their chance to put pressure on Obama and the Donkeycrats, but once again, they pissed it away -- in the recent so-called election, when they could've organized a boycott, withholding their support and sending a message to the Donkeycrats in the only language they understand: defeat at the polls.

Instead, the Pwogs and Liberals spent four years pissing and moaning about how Obama went back on all his promises and pretty much continued all of Bush's policies of warmongering, imperialism and attacks on civil liberties -- and then turned right around and voted for him again. Christ, that's got to be the most retarded thing I've ever heard ot -- real, honest-to-God short-bus-riding, helmet-wearing-in-class, drooling-in-your-lap deep-down retarded.

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At Chris Floyd's Empire Burlesque: Napalm in the Morning (Drones in the Afternoon): The Smell of Victory Stirs Progressives to Action

Housing For All!

Not a whole lot to say about this one — just a solidarity shout-out to all my comrades down at Occupy DC, a salute to their efforts to build a General Assembly hall at the McPherson Square camp for use as an assembly hall and as a symbol of the need for affordable housing in the midst of rampant foreclosures and escalating homelessness.

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Images via OccupyDC streaming video feed.

“A Day In The Life Of The People’s Pentagon”, at OccupyDC.org. (Skip the comments; it’s the usual right-wing trollage and attendant flamefest)